Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran effectively have to be seen as a single geo-strategic arena in which hundreds of local and national actors engage one another—and many have links to other regional players and global powers.

The scale, intensity, and persistence of the last five years of nonstop and often barbaric violence reflect the fact that Syria today, as in the past four millennia at least, continues to be a central pivot in the geopolitics of the Middle East and its neighbors.

President Barack Obama had to deal with a dysfunctional state system and fraying civil societies, as well as blowback from George W. Bush's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet his own actions and inactions throughout two terms of office contributed significantly to the great unraveling of the Middle East.

The Vienna talks on Syria have produced an important agreement that clearly signals one thing and one thing only: The fighting in Syria is no longer to anyone’s advantage and must be brought to an end soon.